Various luminescent species have been used for sensing applications, including biosensing applications. Such luminescent species include so-called “quantum dots” (QDs) or semiconductor nanocrystals. Previous QD-based biosensing methods rely on changes in QD fluorescence intensity or color caused by interactions between an analyte and a QD. For such sensing to occur, QDs must be engineered with a local coordination environment that, after selective interaction with an analyte, is able to undergo an electron or energy transfer reaction with the QD. Thus, in these approaches, the analyte must induce one or more physical or chemical changes that modify the fluorescence of individual QDs. The signal from this type of sensor is usually straightforward to detect, but it is often difficult or impossible to design a QD-based system that can undergo such dramatic fluorescence changes, which are inherently sensitive to donor-acceptor distances and small changes in the local environment. Additionally, reliance on changes in fluorescence of individual QDs due to analyte-QD interactions makes it difficult to build a general QD-based sensor that can be modified for a wide range of analytes without radically changing the design of the sensor for a given analyte of interest. Therefore, development of new compositions and methods for biosensing is needed, including new sensing compositions and methods relying on QD luminescence.